I, Donald:  Fresh off his impeachment, President Trump yesterday used the National Prayer Breakfast, an event of faith, forgiveness, and respect, to attack the people who brought him to the brink of removal from office.

  The President said, “My family, our great country and your President, have been put through a terrible ordeal by some very dishonest and corrupt people. They have done everything possible to destroy us. And by so doing, very badly hurt our nation.”

  Trump had arrived at the event waving a newspaper with the huge headline, “Trump acquitted.” He claimed “total acquittal” even though he was only four votes out of 100 from being kicked out of his job. 

  With House Speaker Nancy Pelosi only a few seats away, Trump said, “I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong. Nor do I like people who say I pray for you, when they know that that’s not so.” The dig was at Mitt Romney, who said his vote to remove Trump was based in his Mormon faith, and Pelosi, who has said she prays for Trump.

  Trump wasn’t done. Later in an hour-long riff at a White House victory celebration, he said, “It was evil. It was corrupt. It was dirty cops. It was leakers and liars. And this should never ever happen to another president, ever.”

  He claimed, “We went through hell unfairly, did nothing wrong, did nothing wrong.” 

  Trump rambled on about the Russia investigation, appointing federal judges, firing James Comey, and the unfairness of his impeachment. “I had Nancy Pelosi sitting four seats away,” he said, “and I’m saying things that a lot of people wouldn’t have said, but I meant every word of it.” 

  When President Bill Clinton was acquitted, he delivered a two-minute apology for his mistakes and dragging the country through his embarrassing personal mess. Not Trump. The angry President said, “These people are vicious. Adam Schiff is a vicious, horrible person. Nancy Pelosi is a horrible person, and she wanted to impeach a long time ago when she said, ‘I pray for the president. I pray for the…’  She doesn’t pray. She may pray, but she prays for the opposite, but I doubt she prays at all.”

  Pelosi, a devout Catholic, later said, “He really needs our prayers. He can say whatever he wants. But I do pray for him.”

 Keep Praying: While Utah Sen. Mitt Romney was the subject of howls of execration for his impeachment vote, The Salt Lake Tribune published an admiring editorial.

  The paper said, “All Utahns, all Americans, regardless of politics, ideology or religion should be duly impressed with Romney’s decision to follow his heart and his conscience — and his God — in doing the right thing when doing the right thing was difficult.”

  The Tribune was not joined by the far right talking heads who have made Romney their target. The headline on today’s Washington Post says, “In acquittal’s wake, a surge of hostilities.”

  Fox Business anchor Lou Dobbs said, “Romney is going to be associated with Judas, Brutus, Benedict Arnold forever.”

  This, just for voting against a President from his own party.
  Fox’s frowning Tucker Carlson said Romney “shall go unnamed” on his show, “on the grounds that silly moral preening should not be rewarded with the publicity it is designed to garner.” 
  Laura Ingraham called Romney “the ultimate selfish, preening, self-centered politician,” but admitted that he has a good hair.
  Sean Hannity said, “Clearly, losing a presidential election ruins people.”

  And radio host Sebastian Gorka, an alumnus of the Trump administration,  called Romney a “skirt-wearing little pajama boy Millennial snowflake.”

Outbreak: A Chinese doctor who had warned of the dangers of the Wuhan Coronavirus has died of the disease. After issuing his warning, the doctor, Li Wenliang, was hauled in for questioning by the authorities in the middle of the night. The 34-year-old leaves a child and a wife expecting their second. He’s now considered a hero in China.

   Japanese authorities say that 61 people have tested positive for the coronavirus on a quarantined cruise ship in Yokohama — that’s up from 20 yesterday.

  The deaths mount up every day. At least 620 people have died and 31,520 made sick.

The Bulletin Board: A federal judge in Brazil dismissed criminal charges against American journalist Glenn Greenwald, who had been accused in connection with the hacking of cellphone messages that embarrassed prosecutors and prominent officials. — The Trump administration yesterday put the final touches on plans to allow mining and drilling in what was part of the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah. Two years ago Trump cut the monument’s acreage in half.   

Iowa: Both Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders have declared victory in the Iowa Caucuses after a long count ended in a virtual tie for first place.

  Democratic National Chairman Tom Perez called for a re-count, but the Iowa Democrats say they won’t do it until once of the candidates wants it. The candidates have all moved on to the coffee shops and high school gymnasiums of New Hampshire in advance of that state’s Tuesday primary.  

The Obit Page: Alice Mayhew, an editor who ushered a small library of writers into publication, has died at age 87. 

  In 2014, when Simon & Schuster celebrated its 90th anniversary by asking staff members to vote for their 90 favorite titles, 29 on the list had been edited by Mayhew.

  Her first big success was, “Our Bodies, Our Selves” (1973), the feminist classic assembled by the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective. 

  She launched “All the President’s Men,” the bestseller about the Watergate scandal by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Mayhew also had her hand on John Dean’s “Blind Ambition: The White House Years” (1976); Taylor Branch’s “Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years” (1998); and Diane McWhorter’s Pulitzer Prize-winning civil rights history, “Carry Me Home” (2001).

  Not that much was written about Mayhew. The editor of tens of millions of words declined to be interviewed herself. 

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